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Bulletin N°144

7 janvier 2008 - January 7, 2008

Accueil - Home



PAUVRETE - POVERTY

. Gender equality, International Poverty Centre, Brasilia, Poverty in focus, n° 13, January, 28 p., (2008).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Données internationales / International data

. Working out of poverty : A study of the low-paid and the "working poor",
G. Cooke and K. Lawton, Institute for Public Policy Research, London, January, 65 p., (2008).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Royaume-Uni / United Kingdom

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The economic security of older women and men in the United States, T. Finkle, H. Hartmann, and S. Lee, Institute for Women's Policy Research, Washington, Briefing paper, n° D480, December, 8 p., (2007).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Etats-Unis / United States

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Growth strategies and poverty reduction : the institutional complementarity hypothesis, R. Boyer, Paris-Jourdan Sciences économiques, Working paper, n° 43, 50 p., (2007).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Pays en voie de développement / Developing countries

EMPLOI - EMPLOYMENT

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L’activité des missions locales et PAIO en 2006. La hausse de l’activité se poursuit avec la montée en charge du CIVIS, L. Bionnevialle, Dares, Paris, Premières synthèses, n° 02.1, janvier, 6 p., (2008).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : France

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Le contrat d’insertion dans la vie sociale (CIVIS) : la moitié des jeunes occupe un emploi à la sortie du dispositif, L. Bionnevialle,
Dares, Paris, Premières synthèses, n° 02.2, janvier, 7 p., (2008).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : France

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A fistful of Euros : Does one-Euro-job participation lead means-tested benefit recipients into regular jobs and out of unemployment benefit II receipt ?,
K. Hohmeyer and J. Wolff, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung,  Nürnberg, IAB discussion paper, n° 32/2007, 65 p., (2007).

Résumé - Summary : In 2005 a major reform of the German means-tested unemployment benefit system came into force. The reform aimed at activating benefit recipients, e.g., by a workfare programme, the so-called One-Euro-Job. This programme was implemented at a large scale. Participants receive their means-tested benefit and a small compensation of usually one to 1.5 EURO per hour worked. Participation typically lasts six months or less. We investigate the impact of One-Euro-Jobs for participants who entered the programme at the start of the year 2005. We apply propensity score matching to estimate the treatment effects on the outcomes regular employment, neither being registered as unemployed nor as job-seeker and no unemployment benefit II receipt. We observe these outcomes for about two years after programme start. The locking-in effects are small. Moreover, 20 months after programme there is a significant but small positive impact on the employment rate of female but not male participants. During the first two years after programme start, participation does not contribute to avoiding unemployment benefit II receipt. Our results imply that there is some effect heterogeneity: Participation reduces the employment rate of participants younger than 25 years, but raises it for some older participant groups. It is ineffective for participants who were recently employed, while it is effective for participants who lost their last contributory job between 1992 and 2000
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Allemagne / Germany

. Employment protection reforms, employment and the incidence of temporary jobs in Europe : 1995-2001,
L. M. Kahn, Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn, IZA discussion paper, n° 3241, December, 47 p., (2007).

Résumé - Summary
: Using European Community Household Panel data for nine countries for 1996-2001, I investigate the impact of reforms of employment protection systems on employment and on temporary jobs for wage and salary workers. Individual fixed effects models are estimated, with the inclusion of country-specific trends in the dependent variable, addressing the possibly changing labor force composition and the possible endogeneity of the reforms. A basic finding that is robust to all specifications and to the disaggregation of the sample by country is that policies making it easier to create temporary jobs raise the likelihood that wage and salary workers will be in temporary jobs. However, there is no evidence that such reforms raise employment, and in some countries, they appear to lower employment. Thus, these reforms appear rather to encourage a substitution of temporary for permanent work. Reforms of permanent employment protection mandates have small and insignificant effects on employment and temporary jobs on average. Moreover, when I disaggregate by country, such reforms appear more often to lower overall employment and to lower the share of employment in permanent jobs. These are likely to reflect short run impacts of such reforms, which make it easier for firms to discharge substandard workers.
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Europe

. ERM report 2007 : Restructuring and employment in the EU, the impact of globalisation,
European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Dublin, 117 p., (2007).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Europe

. La grande coalition et le marché du travail en Allemagne,
H. Scherl et S. Noll, IFRI, Paris, Note du Cerfa, n° 50, décembre, 23 p., (2007).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Allemagne / Germany

. Last hired, last fired ? Black-white unemployment and the business cycle, K. A. Couch and R. Fairlie, National Poverty Center, Ann Arbor, NPC working paper series, n° 07-35, 48 p., (2007).

Résumé - Summary
: Past studies have tested the claim that blacks are the last hired during periods of economic growth and the first fired in recessions by examining the movement of relative unemployment rates over the business cycle. Any conclusion drawn from this type of analysis must be viewed as tentative because the cyclical movements in the underlying transitions into and out of unemployment are not examined. Using Current Population Survey data matched across adjacent months from 1989 to 2004, this paper provides the first examination of labor market transitions for prime-age black and white men to test the last-hired, first-fired hypothesis. Considerable evidence is presented that blacks are the first fired as the business cycle weakens. However, no evidence is found that blacks are the last hired. Instead, blacks are initially hired from the ranks of the unemployed early in the business cycle and later are drawn from non-participation. The narrowing of the racial unemployment gap near the peak of the business cycle is driven by a reduction in the rate of job loss for blacks rather than increases in hiring. These dynamic patterns and their timing have not been identified in the previous literature.
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Etats-Unis / United States

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Quels secteurs réformer pour favoriser l’emploi et la croissance ?,  R. Bouis, Direction générale du Trésor et dela Politique économique, Paris, Documents de Travail, n° 2007-13, décembre, 35 p., (2007).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : France

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Temporary jobs : Port of entry, trap, or just unobserved heterogeneity ?, F. Berton, F. Devicienti and L. Pacelli, Laboratorio R. Revelli, Moncalieri, Working paper, n° 68, December, 22 p., (2007).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Italie / Italy

. What are the long-term effects of the UI ? Evidence from the UK JSA reform, B. Petrongolo, Centre for Economic Performance, London, CEP working paper, n° 841, December, 57 p., (2007).

Résumé - Summary
: This paper investigates long-term returns from unemployment compensation, exploiting variation from the UK JSA reform of 1996, which implied a major increase in job search requirements for eligibility and in the related administrative hurdle. Search theory predicts that such changes should raise the proportion of non-claimant nonemployed, with consequences on search effort and labor market attachment, and lower the reservation wage of the unemployed, with negative effects on post-unemployment wages. I test these ideas on longitudinal data from Social Security records (LLMDB). Using a difference in differences approach, I find that individuals who start an unemployment spell soon after JSA introduction, as opposed to six months earlier, are 2.5-3% more likely to move from unemployment into Incapacity Benefits spells, and 4% less likely to have positive earnings in the following year. This latter employment effect only vanishes four years after the initial unemployment shock. At the same time, earnings for the treated individuals seem to be lower than for the non treated, but the confidence intervals around these estimated effects are quite large to exclude a wider variety of scenarios. These results suggest that while tighter search requirements were successful in moving individuals off unemployment benefits, they were not successful in moving them onto new or better jobs, with fairly long lasting unintended consequences on a number of labor market outcomes.
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Royaume-Uni / United Kingdom

REVENU - INCOME

. Minimum wages and youth employment : Evidence from the Finnish retail trade sector,
P. Böckerman and R. Uusitalo, Labour Institute for Economic Research, Helsinki, Discussion papers, n° 238, 29 p., (2007).

Résumé - Summary : Following an agreement between the trade unions and the employer organisations, Finnish employers could pay less than the existing minimum wage for young workers between 1993 and 1995. We examine the effects of these minimum wage exceptions by comparing the changes in wages and employment of the groups whose minimum wages were reduced with simultaneous changes among slightly older workers for whom the minimum wage regulation was still binding. Our analysis is based on the payroll record data and minimum wage agreements from the retail trade sector over the period 1990-2005. We discover that average wages in the eligible group declined only modestly despite the fact that the excess supply of labour during high unemployment should make it relatively easy to attract workers even with low wages. The minimum wage exceptions had no positive effects on employment
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Finlande / Finland

. The wage premium on tertiary education: new estimates for 21 OECD countries, H. Strauss and C. de la Maisonneuve, OECD, Paris, Economic department working papers, n° 589, December, 63 p., (2007).

Summary : This paper presents cross-section estimates of gross hourly wage premia on tertiary education. They are based on a unified framework for 21 OECD countries from the 1990s to the early 2000s and use international household surveys to maximise international comparability. The results of the augmented Mincerian wage equations point to an average hourly gross wage premium on completed tertiary education of 55% in 2001 (country-gender average), translating into a premium of close to 11% per annum of tertiary education. Wage premia display little variation over time but huge cross-country variation: at 6% they are lowest in Greece and Spain (men and women) as well as in Austria and Italy (women) while reaching 14%-18% in Hungary, Portugal, and in most Anglo-Saxon countries. Given that the wage premium is the single most important driver of private returns to education, the results presented here have potentially important implications for policies that aim at increasing investment in human capital.

Résumé  : Cette étude présente des estimations transversales de la prime salariale horaire brute pour l'éducation supérieure qui reposent sur un cadre harmonisé pour 21 pays de l'OCDE entre les années 90 et le début des années 2000. L' étude est basée sur des enquêtes internationales auprès des ménages afin de maximiser la comparaison entre pays. L « extension » des équations salariales de Mincer donne comme résultat une prime salariale horaire moyenne brute à l'achèvement d'un diplôme d'éducation supérieure de 55% en 2001 (en moyenne pour les hommes et les femmes pour tous les pays), ce qui est équivalent à près de 11% par année d'éducation supérieure. Les primes salariales varient peu au cours du temps mais de manière significative à travers les pays : les plus faibles sont en Grèce et en Espagne à 6% (hommes et femmes) ainsi qu'en Autriche et en Italie (femmes) alors quelles atteignent 14%-18% en Hongrie, au Portugal et dans la plupart des pays anglo-saxons. Étant donné que la prime salariale est le déterminant le plus important du rendement privé de l'éducation supérieure, les résultats peuvent avoir des implications importantes pour les politiques visant l'augmentation du stock de capital humain.
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Pays de l'OCDE / OECD countries

. Wages and employment of French workers with African origin, R. Aeberhardt et alii, Crest, Paris, Document de travail, n° 2007-36, 24 p., (2007).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : France

AUTRES DONNEES SOCIALES - OTHER SOCIAL ISSUES

. Les jeunesses face à leur avenir : une enquête internationale, A. Stellinger, R. Wintrebert, préface F. de Singly, Fondation pour l'Innovation Politique, Paris, Rapport, 185 p., (2008).
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Europe, Etats-Unis / Europe, United States

. L'émergence de l'âge adulte, une nouvelle étape du parcours de vie : Implications pour le développement des politiques,
S. Gaudet, Projet de Recherche sur les Politiques, Ottawa, Document de discussion, Décembre, 33 p., (2007).
English version "Emerging adulthood : a new stage in the life course : Implications for policy development"
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Canada

. Transnational investments in informational capital : A comparative study of Denmark, France and Sweden, M. D. Munk, The Danish National Institute of Social Research, Copenhagen, Working paper, n° 21/2007, 35 p., (2007).

Résumé - Summary
: This paper analyses the acquisition of informational capital, e.g. academic capital, measured as student mobility, and understood as transnational investments in prestigious foreign educational institutions. In the 1990s, educational “zones of prestige” have especially been the United States, the United Kingdom and, to some extent, Germany and France. Official statistics from Sweden, Denmark and France regarding the outflow of students show increasing student mobility. In particular, the study reveals that students from the upper and upper middle social classes (measured by parental occupation) are more likely than students from other social classes to pursue transnational investments, even though students from the middle and working classes have now entered the competition. This result is also recently found in an analysis of Danish academic emigrants. All in all, the studies confirm the hypothesis that students from upper classes are more likely than others to invest in specific informational capital in the field of education, in national environments but also in international settings.
Zone géographique / Geographical area : Danemark, France, Suède / Denmark, France, Sweden